Algonquin Park Cottages

**Dennis** · July 21st, 2011

A little history about the Master Plan for Algonquin Park.

Many years ago, I bought the Master Plan book and still have it around some where here at home. The one thing that the park wanted to do is restore the land from those the leased it for 100 years back to the way it was, that meant anyone that had a cottage that it's lease was about due, would get renewed, and the cottage would be torn down or burned down to restore that land. Now this should have happened years ago and most of the cottages should have been taken down by now and I noticed that there are a number on the lake that are still in use, and I wanted to know more as to why they are still there today. Don't get me wrong this is a good thing to have them there to some degree.

So I went to the main office and spoke to someone there about the Master Plan, and the cottages that are still there today.

The answer was, they are now given 20 year lease only, and that the park still plans on having the land returned to normal again with no cottages, but at this time, they arr a source of income for the park, they have to pay for the lease of the land for 1 and 2 they have to pay a yearly pass to access the park which is another $117.00 or so. I was also under the impression as well that they had to purchase wood from the park, but if there was a dead tree on the land that they could use that for firewood, but only dead trees. One evening I heard a big tree come cracking down from one of these cottages in the images. Some of the cottages are in poor shape, well others are really nice looking so it makes me think that the owners are not going to spend the money on them as it may not be worth it in the long run for them, or that the people that have them are maybe to old to bother.

As you can see they have a fire going inside the first image, and on the second one that is smoke from sites at the other end making it's way down the lake.